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| The strands of her hair were like strings of binary computer code |
Chapter 1
The
archaeologist Anson Hunter plummeted, tumbling uncontrollably into darkness.
Was
it a tomb shaft he was plunging down, he thought, feeling the darkness rip past
his body?
Yet
instead of sliding walls of stone, he flew down a pit of glowing green
perspective lines that converged at the point of infinity.
He
saw a woman, depicted in graphic green mesh-lines of light, watching him drop.
The
strands of her hair were like strings of binary computer code, a rainfall of
green ones and zeroes and her Egyptian eyes were bright points of light.
When
he hit bottom, a place where the darkness coalesced into crushing density, even
his mind went dark,
After
an eternity, he opened his eyes.
He
was seeing stars.
But
they were not stars in a night sky, instead they were leopard skin spots on a tight
body gown worn by the ancient Egyptian goddess Seshat, Mistress of Knowledge. The
spots transformed into stars and then into electronic green spangles against a
darker green sky and in her headband appeared a crowning star with seven
brilliant points and a downturned crescent above it.
He
was either dead or had entered her realm.
Seshat
spoke in a thrilling whisper that made his body quiver. It was the voice of the
infinite, yet was as gentle and fluttering in his ears as a breeze.
"I am The Silicon Goddess
and Glass Cat, Mistress of all information technology, Mistress of the Library
and Inventor of Writing, the Keeper of all knowledge on all subjects,
mathematic, sciences, architecture, cosmography, all secrets both human and
divine. I am the Mistress of Memories, Recorder of History and Reckoner of
Lifetimes.”
He
looked around at an ocean of binary code and he saw landmarks rising like an
endless glowing cityscape – webpages, blogs, photographs, streaming videos, computer
games, and above his head the dense, streaking internet traffic of emails and
transactions. He saw a search engine, a vast object in the sky like some
phosphorescent creature from the deep night of the ocean, trailing millions of
questing legs of zeroes and ones. Beyond that, and surrounding all, stretched out
glowing constellations of routing paths as dense as neural pathways.
Then
he understood.
The
Internet was Seshat’s Lost Library resurrected today.
"Where is God in all of this?"
he said.
"You speak of another universe.
Yet even in this dimension he is here, along with every other religion and all
the gods and goddesses of Egypt."
"If you are the goddess
of all knowledge, then you know what is going to happen in the future.”
"Your future?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to count your
years?"
"No."
"Then what do you want
from the Mistress of Knowledge?"
"An answer to just one
question."
"Very well."
"Will I succeed in finding
the Source of all the ancient world’s knowledge, the Lost Library of
Seshat?"
"You dare to seek my
forbidden library?"
"Yes."
"Even supposing you were
worthy of finding it, how badly do you want it? Can you say you want it so
badly you will die trying?'"
"I want it so badly I’ll
die trying."
"Then that is your
answer."
"But that’s a riddle.
Does it mean I’ll die whilst still trying to find it, or that I’ll die upon
finding it? Or do you merely want to measure the depth of my commitment?"
